UK newspaper: “PHL new breeding ground for ISIS jihadis”

Three weeks ago, I wrote a column entitled, “ISIS’ rise and terror should tell us to junk and bury BBL now.”

There I pointed out that the two Islamic armed organizations differ in their approach. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) strategy is the Maoist style of raising a conventional guerilla army that would demand from the central government the right for Muslims in the Philippines to form their own independent state.

The Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is also using that strategy, but on a grander and faster scale, using the billions of dollars it receives as financial support from its Saudi Arabian sympathizers and revenues from the oil wells it has seized and taken over.

The MILF’s difference from the ISIS, though, is that the Middle East jihadist organization openly espouses, finances and undertakes horrible terrorist attacks that kill mostly civilians, as in their recent carnage in Paris and California, and mass beheadings of people outside of their faith. At least the MILF claims that’s not the way it operates.

Both, though, have the same goal – the establishment of an Islamic state. That of ISIS is the medieval grand vision of a global caliphate. That of the MILF, is a Bangsamoro (which translates to Moro Nation) at the heart of Mindanao, disguised at this stage as merely an autonomous entity with an “asymmetric” relationship with the Philippine nation state.

What President Aquino and his bleeding-heart negotiators refuse to see in their obsession for the Nobel Peace Prize is that to set up an Islamic state isn’t just a fervent dream for Muslims. It is an injunction for every Muslim to contribute to the establishment of such an Islamic state.

That is the reason why there is no autonomous entity anywhere in the world under Muslim leadership. For an independent state to allow the creation of such a Muslim-dominated area would mean its political dismemberment: the Muslim rulers in such an entity would use their territory to strengthen their army for their eventual secession. We would have been the only suckers in the world to have fallen for such lies by the MILF.

What I did not expect when I wrote that article was that the ISIS was not just in touch with the MILF to recruit potential jihadists. They have also been directly going to the Muslim masses to attract jihadists for training to fight both in Mindanao and in the Middle East.

Photo from the UK newspaper, Daily Mail, showing ISIS recruits training in Mindanao. Caption reads: “Recruits are forced to crawl under a fence of barbed wire as a commander lets off occasional gunshots.”

The London-based Daily Mail the other day had a major feature on ISIS’ operations in the Philippines, with several accompanying photos, as well as embedded videos. The article’s title: ISIS unveil the Philippines as their new breeding ground for jihadis with their latest propaganda video featuring a secret Filipino jungle training camp.

The text of the article is, however, short as it is mainly a video-based report:

The Philippines has become the latest ISIS target for expansion after the jihadi group released its first propaganda video of a terror training camp in the Filipino jungle.

“Several jihadi commanders are shown urging Filipinos to travel to Syria to join ISIS before revealing the group have already started their own terror camp in the Philippines.

The footage shows the ‘soldiers of the Caliphate in the Philippines’ working on their fitness and agility by completing a series of assault course drills.

A small group of recruits, each wearing similar black clothing and masks, are shown climbing up rope ladders, crawling under barbed wire and practicing with weapons.

The Filipino government has long said that support for ISIS in the Philippines was limited to local bandits claiming allegiance to the group.

However, the latest propaganda video suggests that the jihadi group has earmarked the Philippines as a potential site for establishing further new bases.

The new video comes after eight members of a criminal gang that pledged allegiance to ISIS were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines last month.

The hour-long battle took place in Palimbang, a remote town in the south – home to the predominantly Catholic nation’s Muslim minority and the scene of decades of conflict.

The bandits were from Ansar al-Khalifa, a small group that declared its support for ISIS in a video circulated on the Internet last year, regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan said.

The larger Abu Sayyaf group has also pledged its allegiance to ISIS and is holding at least four foreign nationals hostages.

The group is demanding millions of dollars in ransom for their safe release and have released several videos threatening them with execution.

Tan told AFP that five black flags similar to those used by Islamic State fighters were recovered from the bandits after the clash.

While the relatively new Ansar al-Khalifa had extorted from businessmen and stolen cattle from farmers, it had no proven links with Islamic State – also known by the acronym ISIS – national military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said.

‘This group is trying to ride on the popularity of the ISIS, but they’re not really ISIS,’ he told AFP. ‘We view them as mere criminal gangs.’

Tan said the military was verifying intelligence reports that one of the eight killed was an Indonesian national.”

We really should thank Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for heroically resisting this stupid Administration’s massive steamrollers (and ATM machines) that would have created an “ISIM” in the south – the Islamic State for Islands of Sulu and Mindanao. Most of those who voted for the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law in the House of Representatives were, of course, Liberal Party members, including vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo.tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.comwww.rigobertotiglao.com

15 Comments

i would believe that ISIS might be working in some part of the country, I would believe it is finance by the islamic extremist. we can believe everything but how we can deliver truth in a manner that will be understand and supported by many. simple layman pinoy, not bothered with this issues, their issues is how their stomach will be fill in and how his life will be change after the election? if we will get a new leader who can lead the country and able to fight for this extremist then we can believe that this story is another story.
we need a strong willed commander in-chief to boost the morale of our military.
a strong military force and non corrupt officials .

The Saudis are supporting ISIS you say. Well, Saudi Arabia’s major allies are America, the UK and France. These are the countries supporting the terrorists who are fighting Assad is Syria. They are also the countries working fervently for the passage of the BBL. If the ISIS attacks us, how stupid is it to conclude that is the American-led West that is actually attacking us?

Of what use are those latest military war materiel acquisition if this naive and stupid government doesn’t know who the enemies are? Do I need to spell it out? MILFs, ABU SAYA, NPAs, MNLF, BIFF and all the rest of the savage barbaric outlaws in Mindanao!

The Russian intelligence has named Philippines as one ISIS influenced countries in South East Asia. This was published in their daily newspaper. Likewise, with the MILF coddling of the two world renowned terrorist which brought the action in Mamasapano, both of these MILF and MNLF rebel groups cannot be trusted. Our congressmen and Senators should be more diligent and should do more research about this ISIS organisation which has grown to be a global terrorist organization. Senator Marcos was right in not pushing right away the approval of this BBL.

The LP leadership, disappointingly including Senate President Drilon who is as or more corrupt than former Senate Pres Enrile, have become the docile sheep of the most anti-Philippine-Republic president, BS Cojuangco-Aquno. The LP leaders, like Drilon and Mar Roxas, may be corrupt but I thought they had the survival of our Republic at heart. It turns out that they do not! Are they victims of some hallucinatory brainwashing used by Aquino, Butch Abad and their foreign mentors or partners?

ALL PATRIOTIC FILIPINOS MUST NOW RISE AGAAINST THE AQUINO REGIME AND THE LP!!!!!!!

Why don’t the AFP buy an RQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle with Hellfire missiles so it can see from the sky all those training camps and just blast them all to smithereens? It just cost USD40M which is far cheaper than buying all those hardware for ground attacks in areas they are not even sure whether they are such training camps.

The Daily Mail is known well as a racist, aggressive and lying newspaper. Everything written has an agenda. Never believe the lies printed by this so called newspaper, it’s more of a comic. Do not fall for this racist message that they push!

These congressmen who voted to pass the BBL are guilty of treason. They should face the court next year after the new government take over. Number one in the list is Noy Aquino III. Next year he will loose his immunity, since he will won’t be a president anymore. If Aquino try to gather his kkk or LP, he will discover that he’ll be left alone by his friends who themselves will try to escape from the jaws of justice.

Most of those who voted for the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law in the House of Representatives were, of course, Liberal Party members, including vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo.
———————————————

Just shows what can happen when you elect incompetent and clueless dimwits to positions of power. With any luck the Philippines will survive the liberal party and maybe start reclaiming the country for the people.